Opportunities for Inquiry

1. Opportunities for Inquiry Deep dive into inquiry for TL Trainers

2. Welcome and Hellos • Status Updates • News • Housekeeping

3. Where are we now? Interview another person • share your process and learning • explore your needs for presenting • use the note cards to communicate specific questions/concerns/ideas to Leslie or Mary Share out

4. Powerful Learning • Personal Connection/Emotional connection • Open mind to think differently/Engaged • Uncomfortable/Out of comfort zone • Application to real world/Life experiences • Models/ “I can do this!” • Change/Survival mode • Discovery & Creativity

5. Sam Chaltain: Faces of Learning • http://facesoflearning.net  • Challenging • Engaging • Supportive • Relevant • Experiential

6. NNPS 5th Grade Geography

7. Assumptions These assignments are designed to: • Give students a background in US geography • Build self-directed learners • Engage students in critical thinking

8. Atlas http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/T20.1B.html

9. Opportunities for Inquiry • Scan the choice board and decide which ones have the potential for deeper inquiry and which ones are more simple fact finding. • Compare your notes with a partner. • Share out

10. Geography Portfolio Choice Board Pick from the following tasks. Each task has a star value next to it. The more difficult the task, the higher the star value. The Google Map Tour is a required task . You need to have 10 completed by the end of the unit. See your teacher once you have chosen your tasks for specific instructions . • Make That Money! • Choose two states from the region. Create a Venn diagram to compare and contrast the major sources of revenue for each state. • 4 • Scouting Report • Identify the logo of 5 college or professional sports teams. • Choose your favorite and create an advertisement to encourage an athlete to join the team. • 4 Presentation Your travel agency has been selected to give a presentation about the region. Design a presentation that would encourage tourists to take a tour of this region. 4 Creative Writing Choose 2 of the provided writing prompts. You must answer each prompt with creative, appropriate and informed responses. Final drafts must be neat and professional . 4 Map Skills Use the varying resources to find the longitude and latitude of the different states and complete the extension activity provided. 3 • Color By State • Identify which states are Republican, and which are Democrat. Complete the attached extension activity that asks you to write about a candidate, problem or idea. 3 Scavenger Hunt Match the correct state to the description provided each state can only be used once. If you need help use an atlas or use www.50states.com 3 Slide Rocket Use the provided Slide Rocket presentation to answer the questions on that region. Then use that information to complete the attached task. 3 Physical Processes Use the provided resources to complete the task describing how the physical and environmental elements affect a region. 2 Weather Phenomenon Use the provided resources to describe what types of weather the region has and how it affects that region. 2 Climate Characteristics Use the provided resources to describe what type of climate the region has and how it affects that region. 2 Bodies of Water Use the provided resources to describe the bodies of water in the region and what affect it has on that region. 2 • Name That State • Label the state and identify the capital and flower. • 2

11. Assumptions True or False? • Kids can be expected to do the fact finding on their own. • Kids would need more support and guidance with the deeper inquiry.

12. What does it take to do these tasks? • Choose a partner and one of the Choice Board tasks. • Take apart what we are asking students to do in the activities that are most opportunistic for a full inquiry process. • Chart, diagram, or define what students have to do. • First, next, then • Consider background knowledge, information literacy skills, reading/writing skills, critical thinking skills, social skills

13. How can we support students in a systematic way to become self directed in inquiry? • What do we want them to know about themselves as learners or about inquiry by the time they get to middle school? • Create a list together. • Five kinds of learning rubric

14. Five Kinds of Learning Rubric

17. How are we supporting success? • Now that you know what it takes for a student to accomplish the task at a high level, what supports can we offer them?

18. Where is the inquiry within the assignment? • Map it onto the Guided Inquiry/NNPS Inquiry process.

20. Inquiry tools

21. What tools are there to help lead students to success and independence?

23. Strategies • Useful tools for moving forward and getting deeper into the inquiry. • Meta-cognitive awareness of strategies. • Awareness of how I am learning & how I learn best. • These strategies are also great for academic language acquisition and English learning. • Integrates the literacies into inquiry.

24. We want our students to say things like • “When I talked about my ideas it helped me to gain a clearer focus.” • “Charting helps me to synthesize my ideas by seeing connections between things.” • “Charting helped me to choose the right direction for my inquiry after I explored some ideas.” • “When I journal throughout inquiry it helps me to think and gives me new ideas.”

25. What tools are there to help lead students to success and independence?

26. Systems Thinking • Russ Ackoff – Systems Thinking • 12 minutes • http://tinyurl.com/Ackoff-systems • Peter Senge- MIT professor • 5 minutes • triangulation @ 3:10 • http://tinyurl.com/senge-systems

27. 5th Grade Geography Unit • As a structure or system that paves the way for other things • Where has it shown potential for you? • Where’s the leverage in this work? • Is there potential that hasn’t been tapped? Consider: • Relationships/ Collaborations/ Growing the knowledge of inquiry process in your school

28. Systems thinking • What systems do you have or can you put into place so

29. Thank you! http://tinyurl.com/Trainers-eval-dec3